Nike ushers in new era for fashion tech

With the Adapt BB basketball shoe, Nike hopes the conspicuous consumer wants a shoe that can be controlled via app. Contributor Jian DeLeon takes it for a spin at Nike HQ — and explores what the company’s plans for the technology could mean for the future of fit and wearable tech.

Nike’s newest sneaker — a self-cinching “smart” basketball shoe — dropped last Tuesday. Two days before launch, it had already sold out online and was going for double the retail price of $350 on the secondary market.

Hype and sellouts are nothing new in the world of sneakers, but that isn’t often the case for wearables. The debut of Nike’s Adapt BB is an attempt by the American sportswear giant to straddle the divide between style and technology with footwear as firmware. If successful, it would introduce a new era in which our clothes dynamically adapt to us.

Originally envisioned by Tinker Hatfield — who worked on iconic sneakers including the Air Jordan, Air Max 1 and Huarache — the shoe was designed by Nike’s design, engineering and digital teams to withstand the rigours of professional basketball players. The core technology is called Nike FitAdapt, which is powered by a Bluetooth-enabled “electro adaptive reaction lacing” function. Using an app or two buttons on the shoe, wearers can adjust tightness, track stats and change two lights on each shoe from green and blue to pink and purple. In the next few weeks, Nike will release an update to enable wearers to save their preferred tightness settings.

Jordan Rice, Nike senior director of smart systems engineering, compares it to the iPhone — likening the layer that detects the presence of a foot to the touch screen, and the way it processes the resulting pressure information to Apple’s Force Touch function. “It's iPhone-grade electronics coupled with a completely custom drivetrain that allows us to fit it all in one package,” Rice says.

Designing for basketball meant that the shoe had to be durable and waterproof, Rice says, because basketball is the hardest performance fit environment for Nike. The Adapt BB shoe is just the first iteration of Nike’s plans for adaptable footwear. The Air Jordan 1, while meant for the court, found a much longer life as a casual sneaker. “These shoes are aimed at a conspicuous consumption consumer,” says NPD Group senior sports industry advisor Matt Powell.

The global athletic footwear market is worth an estimated $64.3 billion, benefiting from the worldwide appeal of premium sneakers.

As with many new tech releases, there have been hiccups. Early users reported challenges pairing the Android app after a software update. Nike says that it is aware of the issue and actively working on a solution.

Vogue Business tried on the Adapt BB at Nike’s New York headquarters to see how the sneakers might work in a lifestyle context. The shoes are eminently comfortable. They’re meant to fit a bit tight at first, and when synced to the app an automatic calibration determines optimal fit within seconds. The sleek design is akin to wearing a concept car, and while the shoes may not make you jump higher, they certainly inspire you to try. It’s also fun hearing the whirring lace engine do its thing — it’s definitely not built for subtlety.

A self-lacing shoe has been a long time coming. It made a famous debut in 1989’s Back to the Future II, and in the past 25 years, Nike and Puma have made proof-of-concept versions that never saw commercial release. Puma is planning a release of the $320 Puma Fi, which is a clear competitor to the Adapt BB, in 2020.

Still, the technology has a long way to go. While Powell, the analyst, sees the potential, he thinks it will be difficult to scale and won’t have a real impact on the sneaker industry — yet. “This is the first step of Nike developing a truly adaptive shoe that does much more than tighten laces,” he says.

Sneakers with software also offer a new possibility: regular updates that improve their quality over time. Instead of a shoe getting less valuable the more you wear it, it may add value and excitement six months into the life of the product, Rice says. “That's a really interesting paradigm shift that's never happened before.”

There are already plans to do this. Early reactions to the coloured lights were so positive that Nike plans to add additional lighting modes much earlier than anticipated.